Zhou Duyan had just responded when he saw the two constables jump down from the tree one after another. In a fluster, one of them asked, “Around this New Year, when you stayed at Liu Shan’s inn, did you buy an old cloth bundle from him?”
Zhou Duyan nodded blankly, completely confused about what was happening.
After a while, he suddenly became agitated. “I only bought a cloth bundle cover—it was just a piece of cloth, and there was absolutely nothing inside!”
Could it be that someone claimed something was lost and now was blaming him?
Upon hearing this, the two constables laughed. On their sunburnt black-red faces, their rows of white teeth gleamed notably.
“You don’t need to be afraid; we’re only looking for the cloth bundle cover—it’s stolen goods.”
Zhou Duyan: “…”
Since it’s described as stolen property, how could he not be scared?
One constable asked him, “Is that cloth bundle cover still with you?”
Zhou hurriedly unfastened a dusty item from his back. “Yes, yes, yes.”
At this point, he started sounding indignant. “That bastard Liu, knowing my poor eyesight, deliberately sold me a used one when the lamp light was dim and I couldn’t see clearly. Fortunately, I noticed the patch underneath, or else I would’ve been ripped off…”
After traveling back and forth between the inner and outer borders, Zhou’s journey had been dusty and arduous. The cloth bundle cover on his back was soaked in dust, making it impossible for the two constables to discern its original pattern.
However, the small patch at one corner matched exactly what the previous waiter had described.
The two constables exchanged a glance, both nodded, visibly relieved, and gestured toward Zhou. “Alright then, come with us.”
Zhou was stunned.
Why was he suddenly being taken to the yamen?
In the end, they didn’t head to the yamen immediately.
Zhou’s stomach growled loudly. Starving to the point of dizziness, he smelled the aroma of stewed meat from the nearby inn, drooling so much it seemed longer than his hair.
After such a long journey, he was already exhausted and thirsty. After only speaking a few sentences, blood oozed from the cracks on his parched lips, and the tired horse he rode also needed rest.
Moreover, he had driven a large flock of sheep. Even if he could go to the yamen, there would be no space for so many sheep.
Therefore, the two constables had to first take him to drink water, eat a meal, and rest his horse with feed.
Since he was extremely dirty, resembling a wild man, he also took a bath and changed into a neat set of clothes.
After a brief rest, they finally went into the city to deliver the sheep to various restaurants and food establishments.
Good sheep from beyond the border were never hard to sell.
Experienced shepherds like Zhou Duyan often had restaurants reserve quantities in advance and paid a deposit. Upon returning, he would directly deliver the sheep to the restaurants and collect the remaining half of the payment.
This trip had been quite profitable. The two constables couldn’t help but tease him on the way to the yamen, “You’ve definitely earned enough for the whole year now. With the weather getting cold, you should take a good break, right?”
Wow, what he earned on this trip was way more than what they made.
Zhou was delighted, shaking his head repeatedly. “I can’t rest. I still have two kids to educate, and they’ll eventually need to get married. While my body is still strong, I must save up more for the family.”
He had been trading sheep for many years. Out of the twelve months in a year, he only rested for four months—from before the New Year to early summer. For the remaining eight months, he made a round trip between the inner and outer borders every four months. After returning this time and resting for a few days, he would head out again. If everything went smoothly, he would just manage to bring back another batch around the New Year.
After the weather turned cooler, people preferred to eat warm, tender, fatty lamb to nourish themselves, and the sales were excellent.
Looking at the several ugly scars on his exposed wrists, the constables recalled the harsh sandstorms, blizzards, and ferocious wild beasts beyond the border, and their previous envy quickly faded.
Well, this was hard-earned money gained at the risk of his life. He deserved it.
Upon entering the Kaifeng Prefecture, Zhou Duyan finally understood what “enthusiastic” truly meant.
Everyone looked at him with extremely intense eyes, as if they were staring at some rare treasure…
In his half a lifetime, he had never been this popular before.
He felt somewhat flattered.
Zhou handed over the cloth bundle cover and honestly recounted his conversation with Liu Shan at that time.
Looking at the dirty, smelly cloth bundle emitting a strong mutton odor, Magistrate Song asked, “Back then, Liu Shan said this bundle was his own?”
Wow, it was so thoroughly used that even Gao Fa himself probably wouldn’t recognize it anymore.
Zhou nodded. “Your Honor, my eyesight may be poor, but my hearing is fine. That’s exactly what he said.”
Magistrate Song ordered, “Bring Liu Shan.”
Zhou was a bit curious. “Your Honor, was that really a black-hearted inn?”
He dared to do such a bold thing. No wonder he was someone who ventured alone beyond the border.
Magistrate Song didn’t answer directly. “What, have you heard similar rumors?”
Zhou hesitated slightly. “It’s hard to say for sure, but I vaguely heard something about Liu Shan’s business dealings not being clean.”
Leaving other things aside, selling him a defective bundle cover by taking advantage of his poor eyesight was bad enough.
Before long, Liu Shan arrived, and upon seeing him, Zhou was greatly surprised.
How could he look like this?
Actually, even if it had been half a year since they last met, Liu Shan now looked completely different compared to just half a month ago.
During his detention, Magistrate Song and others had tried every method to force him to talk, but this fellow still held back.
Besides, there was insufficient evidence to justify using torture, so they could only keep pressuring him.
He was given only thin soup and half enough food daily, and not allowed to sleep well at night. After several days, he had become hunched over.
Magistrate Song slammed the cloth bundle cover in front of Liu Shan. “Liu Shan, do you recognize this?”
After days of poor food and sleep, Liu’s mental state was already precarious, making him sluggish.
He slowly lowered his head to examine it carefully.
Magistrate Song slammed the wooden block on his desk, loudly demanding, “You kept claiming not to know where Gao Fa went, and repeatedly lied, insisting that Gao Fa had already left. Now tell me, why has no one seen Gao Fa since he went to your inn? How did Gao Fa’s cloth bundle cover become your possession and then sold to Zhou Duyan!”
To ordinary people, a murder case is the most serious matter imaginable.
And those who dare commit murder are naturally considered extremely ruthless and heartless. Thus, many people imagine that such criminals must stubbornly resist arrest and refuse to confess easily…
In reality, that’s not the case at all.
In truth, only a very small number of murderers can remain calm after committing murder. Most would feel anxious and fearful. Once caught, they would be scared even before being questioned:
At the sight of the constables, a significant portion of murderers wouldn’t even have time to think about fleeing before their legs automatically gave way.
Then, upon questioning, they would immediately confess everything.
Someone like Liu Shan, who managed to hold out for half a month, was indeed “exceptional.”
And precisely this “excellence” further increased his suspicion.
Because this was murder! To ordinary people, what could be more serious than being wrongly accused of murder by the authorities?
If he was truly innocent, his reaction would definitely be intense—either crying or making a scene… certainly not this silence.
People in poor physical condition are usually extremely sensitive to external sounds, even slight noises like a teacup hitting the table can cause their heart to race.
At this moment, Liu Shan was already like someone hanging by a thread, in a daze. To him, the sound of the wooden block was like a thunderclap. Bombarded by a series of rapid-fire questions from Magistrate Song, his heart pounded violently, and his body trembled suddenly.
“With both eyewitness and physical evidence present, I ask you again—where is the corpse of Gao Fa now? Confess the truth immediately!”
Magistrate Song slammed the wooden block again.
Actually, to be precise, the current situation was still far from having solid evidence, and Magistrate Song’s action was more of a desperate gamble.
If it worked, the truth would come out.
If it failed, after multiple rounds of pressure, Liu Shan might likely be released without charges.
Fortunately, their previous efforts were not in vain, and the scales of justice tilted toward righteousness.
After another deafening slam of the wooden block, Liu Shan, already at his physical and mental limits, collapsed. His backbone gave way like spring snow melting rapidly, and he instantly crumpled to the ground.
As he fell, the shackles on his body clinked together, the cold metallic chill continuously stimulating him until he finally confessed.
“I’ll confess, I did it! I did it! Let me sleep, please, let me get some sleep… I’ll confess to everything…”
He didn’t even take a close look at the cloth bundle. As soon as he heard the name Zhou Duyan, he broke down.
Magistrate Song didn’t dare to be careless. Immediately, he had Liu detail the process of the crime and sign a confession.
Seeing the still-fresh ink on the confession, Magistrate Song first had someone deliver it to Tu Yao for review. Then, seizing the momentum, he led people to escort Liu Shan out of the city to identify the burial site.
He dared not take any chances. What if Liu Shan, after a good rest and meal, regained his courage and denied everything later?
Liu Shan couldn’t even walk anymore, so Magistrate Song had someone prepare a cart to carry him. As they were leaving, they encountered Ma Bing who was also heading out.
“He confessed?!” Seeing the situation, Ma Bing exclaimed in delight.
After nearly a month of effort, everyone in the yamen was exhausted.
More importantly, they were mentally drained.
Until the case was solved, the stone in their hearts would not be lifted, and no one had the mood to laugh and chat freely.
Magistrate Song slowly exhaled, carefully suppressing his joy as he replied, “Almost there. By the way, where is Zizhi?”
Although Magistrate Song had a fiery temper, he was always meticulous when it came to handling cases.
At this moment, saying “almost there” probably meant it was as good as certain.
Ma Bing replied, “I haven’t seen him either. I heard that Xiao Huang from Gao Laoliu’s place came by. I’m a bit worried something might have happened at the free clinic, so I’m planning to go check. Any instructions from you?”
Magistrate Song waved his hand. “No, I just asked casually.”
Having seen these two young men always together, it felt a bit strange to suddenly see only one of them.
Now, how capable is this young marquis really?
If he’s taken a liking to the girl, he should act decisively. Hesitating like this doesn’t seem manly at all… Don’t pick up those bad habits of the nobility, just teasing the girl for fun without commitment.
As Magistrate Song was lost in thought, Liu Shan had already been thrown into the cart. He nodded to Ma Bing, mounted his horse, and led the group out of the city.
After leaving the city, Liu Shan guided them westward for nearly twenty miles, directly into the mountains, until they reached a swampy puddle in a mountain hollow. There, in a lifeless tone, he said, “It’s in there.”
Magistrate Song and the others inwardly cursed, what a damned rascal! He sure knew how to pick a spot!
This mountain was full of twists and turns, and even wild animals avoided it. Who would ever discover it?
Moreover, that puddle wasn’t an ordinary one—it was a swamp-like mud pit, emitting a foul stench and filled with blackish-brown sludge, making it impossible for people to step into.
Although it was already autumn, the sun during the day was still quite warm.
And once it warmed up, the fermented stench intensified.
The mud pit was so smelly that after digging for a while, everyone’s eyes began to water, and they were sniffling and shedding tears.
Thus, with intermittent breaks, as expected yet unexpectedly, many large catfish were unearthed. Thinking about yesterday’s fish chunks on the dinner table, more than a few constables took turns vomiting.
Everyone knew that catfish thrive in filth, but hearing about it was one thing—seeing them thriving in a burial site was another.
On the spot, one constable vomited bile and swore, “Damn it, I’ll never eat catfish again!”
After half a day of hard work, one constable finally hit something hard.
“Your Honor, we’ve found something!”
Magistrate Song had already stuffed two cloth balls in his nose. Upon hearing this, he immediately perked up. Looking closely, indeed, a few corners of something hard were exposed in the center of the half-dug mud pit. After pouring some clean water to rinse it off, faint white bone fragments could be vaguely seen.
The body had been buried for over half a year and had gone through a summer. The corpse had long since rotted away.
Magistrate Song quickly ordered ropes to be tied, branches broken off, and the corpse to be poked, pushed, and pulled. Eventually, they managed to pull up a highly decomposed, unrecognizable corpse.
Calling it a corpse was technically inaccurate because the highly decayed body had been almost entirely devoured by catfish…
After a brief silence, many constables rushed to vomit a second time. Even the battle-hardened Magistrate Song felt a lump rising in his throat and a churning in his stomach.
This bastard!
Unable to contain his anger, he grabbed Liu Shan’s collar fiercely. “You truly deserve to die!”
Liu Shan looked like a dead man, his expression blank.
Magistrate Song spat at him and threw him harshly to the ground. “Go fetch some water, rinse it off a bit, wrap it up, and bring it back.”
Just as everyone was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Liu Shan suddenly murmured, “Dig some more; there’s another one below.”
It was already late at night, stars filling the sky, when Magistrate Song and his group returned, reeking of foul odor.
The strange stench originated from the ox cart behind them, and Liu Shan, who had ridden in the cart on the way out, was now forced to walk, staggering with every step.
No one felt sympathy for him. Occasionally, when he walked too slowly, any constable would kick him. “Hurry up!”
Magistrate Song led the team to unearth two corpses.
The first was naturally the long-missing Gao Fa, while the other was clearly much older. All the skin, flesh, and internal organs had rotted away and been devoured, the skeleton scattered. Magistrate Song led them to thoroughly clean out the mud pit and personally jumped in to piece by piece retrieve the remains.
The constables who had been there felt as if they had died once themselves.
Even though they were seasoned, such a shocking scene was rarely encountered.
After seeing the corpses, Liu Shan completely gave up resistance and cooperated fully, recounting the origins of both bodies.
Initially, he had indeed conspired with Gao Fa to extort money from Erxi, but after receiving the silver, Liu Shan discovered that Gao Fa could no longer be awakened!
Was he only pretending to be dead, but had actually died?
Magistrate Song was somewhat skeptical. “If you didn’t kill him, why didn’t you report it?”
Liu Shan laboriously lifted his eyelids. “If I reported it, how could I keep that fifteen taels of silver?”
Everyone was stunned, unable to think of a rebuttal.
Not only was it the fifteen taels of silver that Liu Chunlan’s couple had paid to keep quiet, but Gao Fa also had over twelve taels of silver earned from his business, and the unsold miscellaneous goods were worth another ten taels or so…
Adding everything up, it was almost enough for Liu Shan’s entire year’s income!
If he reported it, he wouldn’t keep a single coin and might even be imprisoned for extortion.
Driven by greed, Liu Shan’s breathing became heavy.
At that moment, he thought to himself that the couple Liu Chunlan would never voluntarily reveal their connection with Gao Fa, and with so many people coming and going at the inn daily, as long as he was careful…
The inn was understaffed, and the waiters took turns resting each night. With the New Year approaching, Liu Shan allowed the staff to take turns going home for the holidays, leaving even fewer people on night duty.
That night, only a young waiter was dozing in the main hall. Taking advantage of the situation, Liu Shan secretly carried out Gao Fa’s body and quickly dug a hole next to the large iron cauldron.
The fire pit was constantly burning, remaining warm even in the dead of winter, making the ground very soft.
Liu Shan quickly dug a hole large enough to fit a person. Seeing no one around, he placed Gao Fa inside.
However, to his great surprise, after just a few shovelfuls of dirt, Gao Fa groaned and slowly opened his eyes!
One man lying in the pit, half-buried in the earth;
The other standing at the edge, holding a shovel, furiously digging…
Their eyes met, and Liu Shan’s heart pounded violently.
Gao Fa groaned, holding his head, slowly regaining consciousness. Seeing Liu’s posture, he immediately panicked, struggling to sit up. “You!”
Liu Shan said, “At that moment, I had only one thought: I absolutely couldn’t let him cry out.”
At that point, his body reacted faster than his mind. Before he even realized it, he had already jumped down, straddled Gao Fa, and tightly choked his neck.
Gao Fa, already injured and having been lying on the frozen ground for a long time, was no match for Liu Shan.
After struggling for a while, he finally stopped breathing.
After finishing everything, Liu Shan strangely calmed down.
He quickly and calmly buried the body, even taking the time to flatten the ground before returning to his room.
“Wait a moment,” Magistrate Song interrupted his account. “The corpse was clearly found in the mountains.”
Liu Shan nodded, his eyes vacant, only his tone revealing a hint of regret. “I originally intended to bury him there permanently, but unfortunately…”
However, a few days later, the corpse near the hearth began to emit a foul odor. The waiters, under Liu Shan’s intimidation, dared not complain but some customers questioned whether Liu was cooking and selling rotten meat.
To avoid affecting business, Liu Shan had no choice but to find another opportunity to move the corpse to the mountains.
At this point, Coroner Zhang and Ma Bing came over with the autopsy results.
“The first skeleton’s features match Gao Fa’s. The fracture in the throat area confirms he was strangled to death. The second skeleton required some effort to piece together. Without skin and flesh, it’s difficult to determine external injuries, but there are thin, fine scars on the right side corresponding to the third and fourth ribs. The cause of death should be a sharp object piercing the spleen.”
Gao Fa’s autopsy results corroborated Liu Shan’s confession, concluding this case.
However, the identity of the other corpse still needed confirmation.
Having already confessed to one murder, Liu Shan had little left to hide.
He looked down at the shackles on his hands. “I don’t know who he was either—a man in his fifties or sixties, still restless, trying to extort money from me!”
Ma Bing was very curious. “How did he try to extort you?”
So, just because someone tried to extort you, you learned from it and went on to extort others?
That’s not quite how learning should work.
Liu Shan snorted coldly, still holding a grudge even now. “That old bastard claimed I sold him rotten meat! If I didn’t compensate him, he threatened to report me to the authorities!”
Ma Bing asked, “Was he telling the truth?”
Previously, the inn’s waiters had already testified that Liu Shan was stingy to the point of having no conscience, often using diseased livestock meat to pass off as good quality.
So that old man might not have been extorting him at all.
Liu Shan clenched his jaw, his voice filled with hatred. “No one is taking even a single tael of silver from me!”
In his view, the shame of being extorted far exceeded the fear of being imprisoned for murder.
At the time, fearing the matter would escalate, he gave the old man a small amount of silver as compensation. But later, the more he thought about it, the angrier he became. In a surge of rage, he took a knife and chased after him.
Liu wanted his money back, but the old man refused.
The two began to struggle at the foot of the mountain.
The old man, being elderly, couldn’t overpower Liu. In frustration, he threatened to report him to the authorities.
Upon hearing this, Liu’s anger flared, and he impulsively pulled out his knife, stabbing the old man several times.
After the old man died, Liu Shan felt a bit frightened.
But fear was useless. Under the cover of night, he dragged the body into a small water hole in the mountains.
For some time afterward, Liu Shan was extremely anxious, even scaring himself into a serious illness.
However, months passed without any incident, and he gradually became arrogant again, believing the danger had passed…
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